The worn brick building on the corner of Fifth Avenue South and Franklin Street in downtown’s SoBro area has been in Fred Allen’s family since his dad built the place in 1958. Between the proposed $635 million downtown Convention Center and the proposal to extend the age-old Gateway Corridor project to Eight Avenue South, odds are Allen is going to become a victim of the city’s gung-ho efforts to redevelop SoBro. More

Headline after headline has the banking industry reeling from not only the subprime mortgage mess but also from residential real estate developers having difficulty repaying their loans as newly built houses sit unsold. More

Dear Dave,
The payments on our new car are $336 a month over four and a half years, and we still owe a total of $12,000. We’ve cleaned up our other debts, so the car is the only thing hanging over our heads. We’ve also managed to put $10,000 away into savings. Should we pay off the car early, sell it or what?
— Alicia More

Developer Tony Giarratana is working with Nashville’s wealthy May family to develop a town center in Bells Bend, a development they project could bring more than $4 billion in development and rival Cool Springs. More

Ask a very public question about whether the condo market is in trouble and you quickly find out some developers fear that buyers’ psyche is so fragile right now that anything remotely negative will prompt them to flee from urban condo purchases. More

Dear Dave,
My wife and I are both retired. We’re on Social Security and Medicare, plus I receive a small pension. We still have a mortgage of about $24,000 and a second mortgage of $14,000. We’ve got a nest egg of $40,000 saved up, along with a small annuity that’s worth about $20,000. Should we use our savings to pay off the mortgages?
— Bob More